Jul 15 Trois Pistoles

My friend Randy gave me this beer when I was visiting Boston. He told me it was the first dark Belgian stlye ale he had ever actually enjoyed. I was intrigued, thanked him, flew it back to Denmark, and kind of forgot about it at the back of the beer fridge. Well today I saw it back there and thought to myself "Hey Alex, what has happened to a lot of the Belgian beers you have cellared for long periods"? I said back to myself "well other Alex they usually lose their spicy edge and start tasting a little metallic". So I had to pop this and see if it was as good as he said, or if it had faded like my Bell's Hell Hath no Fury. *Spoiler alert…holy hell where has this beer been my whole life?

Pours a very very dark brown, almost black but a tiny tinge of light comes through on the edge of the beer. The head is dirty white, large on the poor but then back down to a nice film on top for the remainder. The aroma is sweet and beatifully Belgian. Ripe dark fruits and big fruity yeast. It smells like almost every other dark belgian beer I have ever had…but at the same time so much better. The smell is intense and fresh, so concentrated. Not sure how to describe it. The taste follows along with the smell as indescribably good. The taste is sweet sweet caramel covered yeasty fruits. The gang from the BE is all here, cloves, fruity yeast, touch of banana, and candy sweet. Unlike many other beers of this kind though, this is not just a one trick pony. The spices and the fruitiness are all in perfect harmony. The sweetness is there, but balanced out with spiced notes so it is not overpowering. They say this beer tastes like port wine, I have not had a lot of port wine but I can certainly see the resemblance here. Sweet and mysterious and just so damn good. I can certainly agree with Randy, this is the best Belgian Dark I have ever tasted. Belgium invented french fries, Cananda perfected them by adding cheese curds and gravy. The same has happened here, and I will be searching for more next time I am on the continent.